News and Events

How can architectural practices harness new approaches to understanding embodied carbon? Practices in Sydney have begun collaborating with masters students and recent graduates to learn how to apply cutting-edge research into embodied carbon. This pilot project pairs students from the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales with members of the Australian Architects Declare movement. In the process architectural practices, students and universities are learning how to better shape education and industry for the challenge of decarbonising buildings. This seminar will report the early findings from the first stage of this pilot project.

Participating students and architectural practices:

Natalia Saavedra Toro – Fitzpatrick & Partners
Barbara Silva Messer – HDR
Ella Xuemin Zhao - Turner
Shilei Chen – Architectus
Camille Gaven – Scott Carver

All students in the pilot are from the Master of Architectural Science at the University of Sydney.

Architects Declare + The Footprint Company

“Guide to Net Zero Embodied Carbon”

Learn with Caroline Noller from The Footprint Company as we present our “Guide to Net Zero Embodied Carbon.” Prof Deo Prasad will update us on the broader guide and book he has been developing at the UNSW.

We will be hosted by The Supply Chain Sustainability School - an exciting partnership which we hope will help you on your sustainable learning pathways :-)

The NSW Tools Working Group has been developing a template for signatories to develop their own Sustainability Action Plan. This will help identify all the issues that need to be addressed as you meet the Declaration.

Paul Reidy from Fitzpatrick Partners has been leading this group, and will share the insights he gained as he tried it out on his own practice.

This webinar will introduce the template and Fitzpatrick + Partners initial SAP. Caroline Pidcock will be giving an introduction and Michael Gabadou will discuss why SAP’s are critical to a business’s success. Come along to hear how you can develop your own and work to make our collective output both sustainable and informed.

As part of the MPavillion Program:

This panel of compelling design storytellers congregate around the field of Biodesign to reconcile, decolonise and indigenize our urban environment.

The panel gathers a community of practise that champions interventions within the circular economy, climate and biodiversity challenges.

Guided by First Nations custodian leadership, the talk highlights projects that expand cultures and communities of care.

Organised by:

Sustainable Architecture Forum @ AIA
Australian Architects Declare

This event is presented in collaboration with the National Sustainable Living Festival

As part of the MPavillion Program:

The Biodiversity Emergency is intricately entangled in the Climate Emergency, and the built environment has significantly contributed to and exacerbated both crises.

Through design interventions and advocacy, the Indigenous Ecosystem Corridors and Nodes (IEC+N) project aims to empower architects, landscape architects, planners and other built environment professionals to contribute to fortifying biodiversity by reconnecting and regenerating habitats that have been destroyed, fragmented and disconnected.

This event brings together a panel of built environment professionals to explore how we can better integrate nature into the design and construction of our cities to support both human and non-humans alike.

Organised by:

Sustainable Architecture Forum @ AIA
Australian Architects Declare

This event is presented in collaboration with the National Sustainable Living Festival

As part of the MPavillion Program:

While architects frequently privilege the ego and the artefact, how can the professional embed a new culture of care anchored in values?

How can we embed an ethic which seeks to infuse identity, dignity and equity and what might this look like?

Join experienced architects Jacinda Sadler, Allen Kong and Jefa Greenaway, as they tackle these compelling questions through their unique perspectives.

Organised by:

Sustainable Architecture Forum @ AIA
Australian Architects Declare

This event is presented in collaboration with the National Sustainable Living Festival

As Part of the National Sustainable Living Festival, the Australian Institute of Architects presents:

Learn about restoring degraded urban ecosystems in Lebanon.

Through the Other Forest Initiative, Adib is firmly committed to the UN Decade of Action; engaged in rewilding the city and empowering communities to reclaim public space by planting native Miyawaki forests in urban landfills.

Adib will go through the environmental challenges and the solutions offered by planting dense native forests in cities around the world, in alignment with the UN SDG goals.

As Part of the National Sustainable Living Festival, the Australian Institute of Architects presents:

The Living Building Challenge asks us to envision a world where communities can be better connected and reconnected to nature; by conserving the natural resources that support human health and every other species in biodiversity.

With our new experiences from 2020, let’s hear from some leading lights in the field as they discuss the opportunities and challenges in realizing such a future.

As Part of the National Sustainable Living Festival, the Australian Institute of Architects presents:

How are emerging architects addressing climate emergency and long-term sustainability in the post-pandemic recovery?

How are they responding to this current reality?

What are the environmental, economic, and social opportunities at this pivotal time?

Stephen Choi will discuss these topics with emerging architects Sarah Lebner, Talina Edwards, Rebecca Lee.

In the face of a rapidly changing climate we will explore drivers that achieve multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. If recent events have anything to tell us lately; it’s that we are firmly planted in interrelationship with the web of life.

Amongst a myriad of converging crisis, we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. Invertebrate populations have decreased by 60% Species are becoming extinct 100 times faster than they would without human impacts. Populations of wild animals have more than halved since 1970, while the human population has doubled.

Biodiversity loss is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Plausibly the cause of a steep rise in infectious diseases that we are seeing across the globe - by way of pandemics from wild animals whose homes have been destroyed.

Our Speakers are Dr Anne Poelina, Prof Sarah Bekessy and Ann McGregor.

Watch on YouTube

We declared and committed, but are we effective?

There are multiple challenges and questions we face in our practices, but the most important of all is: how do we assess if our buildings actually mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss?

In this webinar we will look at an important certification method which claims to be most advanced worldwide – the Living Building Challenge by the International Living Future Institute.

The presentation will be complemented by a certified Australian case study the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre in Wollongong, designed by one of the signatories, Cox Architecture

The presentation will be complemented by a certified Australian case study, thein Wollongong, designed by one of the signatories, Cox Architecture.

Our Speakers are Helen Lochhead, outgoing National President of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), Laura Hamilton O’Hara, CEO of The Future Living Institute Australia and Joe Agius, Design Director of Cox Architecture

Watch on YouTube

Passive House as a responsible AND viable sustainable design option.

We will talk about principles and process of Passive House Design and present Gillies Hall, the largest Passive House certified building in the Southern hemisphere.

Clare Parry, Passive House certifier and one of the founders of Passive House Association of Australia will introduce principles and methods of Passive House Design. She will focus on its relevance to the Australian context and the delivery of Passive House certified buildings in Australia

Simon Topliss, Associate Director of Jackson Clements Burrows Architects will introduce Gillies Hall of Monash University. It is Australia’s first student accommodation built to Passive House standards and one of Australia’s largest cross laminated timber projects. No doubt, Gillies Hall is a comfortable, healthy and thermally consistent environment, that will function as a low energy and climate resilient multi-residential building into the future, delivering on the University’s aim for a net zero campus by 2030.

Completed in 2019, Gillies Hall has received a number of awards already and is shortlisted for the 2020 Victorian Architecture Awards.

Both Clare and Simon worked together on this exciting project which has the potential to lay the path for changing the way we design, deliver and operate our buildings.

Watch on YouTube

In presenting to Architects Declare, Paul Haar will introduce principles and methods, relevant for addressing our climate and biodiversity emergency, that have been applied to conceptualise and detail some of his projects, including self-help housing with remote indigenous Australians, Candlebark School Library, the Mullum Creek eco-housing project, and CERES Fair Wood. These case studies will highlight the overwhelming impact of building materials and building scale in this emergency.

Architect Paul Haar, who has long held passions for natural building materials, water and energy conservation, and community based building culture. For 40 years, his career as an architect has been focused on enriching rather than eroding the health of environmental and social systems.

Watch on YouTube

The Architects Declare Brisbane Meetup #002

Speakers included: Liz Brogden, Emma Healey, Paul Matthew, Matt Seddon, Laura Pascoe & Suzie Wiley.

Watch on Youtube